The Story - Ministerial Rising Action

My purpose for this series is to highlight how the Bible can be read as if it's a long continuous narrative. But inside that long narrative, there are many sub-stories, and last Friday, we saw the beginning of possibly the most important "arc" contained in Scripture. 

If that was the introduction and setting, this is the rising action. This is the section where the conflict begins to ramp up, and the characters react to resistance and shape the rest of the story. This is Jesus's public ministry, and he's just getting started. 

A notable character that we soon meet is named John. John is, on the surface, quite an odd man. Living in the wilderness and eating bugs, he's not the kind of person you'd really expect to be the fulfillment of a long-standing prophecy that has been awaited for generations. But that's exactly what he is. John is Elijah. He is the one sent by God to pave the way for the Messiah, and his life fulfills the same purpose as Elijah's did: to bear witness about the light, in a world where it seems the light has no place. 

That's John's job, and he does it admirably. Calling Israel to repent, he speaks of the coming Savior, the Christ. He tells the Jews about Jesus, and highlights his glory: he is the man that "the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie." 

When Jesus meets John at one of his baptismal gatherings, he tells him to baptize him. John protests—"you should be baptizing me!" he says, but Jesus is insistent, and John obeys. And a dove, the sign of the Holy Spirit (and also a callback to the Flood) flies down from heaven and lands on Jesus's shoulder. It's accompanied by a voice: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." 

Rather an auspicious start to his ministry, don't you think? But Jesus doesn't do what many of us would, capitalize on his newfound fame and try to drum up as much excitement as possible. No, he leaves—leaves civilization behind and lives in the wilderness for forty days and forty nights. 

Theologians wiser than I have written about the significance of the number 40 in the Bible. However, I'll say here that it's important: Noah and his family floated on the water for forty days and forty nights, and the Israelites wandered in the wilderness themselves for forty years before they were able to enter the Promised Land. Perhaps this is similar. It could be a poetic fulfillment of the unfinished story of the children of Israel; tying up a loose end, or at least grabbing onto it to tie up later. Either way, it's beautiful. 

After his time of fasting in the wilderness (during which he resists severe temptation from Satan, proving himself stronger than Eve) he returns to the cities to begin his public ministry in earnest. He calls for himself a group of followers, or disciples, and begins traveling around Israel and a few surrounding nations and spreading the truth of the Gospel. During this time, he performs miracles, tells stories of his own with powerful messages, and speaks to people who are suffering. It's important to mention that he doesn't only talk to the "good people" who are somehow "worthy" of his time—no, he goes to the worst of the worst, the tax collectors, Gentiles, and prostitutes. "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick," he tells a group of skeptical Pharisees. "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners." 

During this time, his following increases, but also his enemies increase. Those Pharisees who were accusing him of fellowshipping with the immoral, they have a grudge. This "Jesus" fellow is disrupting their whole way of life, and questioning their power. Not only that, but he's blaspheming. The Pharisees follow a different Scripture than Jesus does; they trust in the words of the rabbis from the days of the exiles, and take great offense at Jesus's clam to be the Son of God. 

And they're out to defend what they believe. 

As Jesus's miracles increase, and his following grows, his enemies begin to plot. They see that he's a threat. And they decide to stop him, before he succeeds in overturning their carefully-kept plans and systems and replacing them with something better. 

But God cannot be stopped. Nor can he be caught by surprise. Jesus knows the plots that are made against him—and his own plan will shock his people, enemies and friends alike.